Just this week we had The Rocket’s 5-hour congressional hearing; gauze-wielding, syringe-saving Brian McNamee’s testimony; and McNamee’s claim that Debbie Clemens had an intimate encounter with an HGH injection. And now we have Penn professors joining the all-star cast.

Last month, Clemens’ agent Randy Hendricks issued an 18,000-word statistical report claiming the pitcher’s late-career standout stats were due to “adjustments.”

The professors say, “Nice try, but . . . um, no. We don’t think so.”

Their rationale reminds us of all those statistics classes we’re trying to forget. (Hey, we need to free up brain cells for important things like sports gossip, cartoons, and GameBoy). Let’s just say the profs attribute it to something like fuzzy math and a general sense of “somethin’ just ain’t right”:

Our reading is that the available data on Clemens’ career strongly hint that some unusual factors may have been at play in producing his excellent late-career statistics.

They don’t take a stab at what those “unusual factors” might be, but give it long enough and some biochemists will make a special guest appearance on The Roger Clemens Show, too.

Post from: EveryJoe

Fuzzy Math for Clemens?

Hendricks released an 18,000-word statistical report today in response to former trainer Brian McNamee’s allegations that the would-be Hall of Famer jumped on the steroid bandwagon. Fortunately, we’ve taken the time to decode and summarize the whole shebang for you in three words: “Roger Ain’t Guilty.”

To what does Hendricks attribute Clemens’Energizer Bunny-like career? Good ol’-fashioned adjustment. (Is it too silly for us admit to thinking about jock straps upon seeing the words “baseball player” and “adjustment” in the same article?). Hendricks says the Cy Young winner tossed in a “very effective split-finger fastball to offset the decrease in the speed of his regular fastball caused by aging.”

Hey, at least Clemens is lucky enough to have Hendricks and the occasionally-less-than-above-board Scott Boras in his corner.

Will the Cy Young winner prevail or is this a case of creative statistics? Time will tell. And if it doesn’t, we can always hope our fave pitcher Curt Schilling will shake things up on his blog.

Post from: EveryJoe

Roger Clemens’ Agent Says, “Nuh-Uh”